Las Palmas

Las Palmas faces the sea, half working port and half beach town. Las Canteras Beach runs three kilometres through the middle of town, sheltered by a natural rock bar offshore, and locals go down for a swim after work. Behind it the old quarter keeps its wooden balconies, Las Palmas Cathedral and the Casa de Colón, where Columbus is said to have stayed on his way across the Atlantic. Gran Canaria packs a continent into fifty kilometres: in the south, the Maspalomas Dunes roll a genuine sand desert down to the sea. Inland the island climbs to nearly two thousand metres, and Roque Nublo stands up over the ridges as an eighty-metre finger of stone. The pine forests of Tamadaba Natural Park smell of resin and hang over the coast. Papas arrugadas, small potatoes boiled in heavy salt, come with a sharp green sauce.